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ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S RECORL 

♦ I 

ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 


ms DOCTRINES CONDEMNED BY HENRY CLAY. 


THE MASS OF LINCOLN’S SUPPORTERS HOSTILE TO 

THE CONSTITUTION. 


LINCOLN’S COURSE IN CONGRESS ON THE MEXICAN 

WAR. 


THE HOMESTEAD BILL—“LAND FOR THE LANDLESS,” 
LINCOLN, DOUGLAS, AND HAMLIN. 


Me.. Lincoln, agcainst whom we shall utter 
no word which is not strictly true, was an “ Old- 
Line Whig.” Hence his friends make great 
efforts to show that he stands upon the slavery 
question .where the Whig party of other days 
stood, and that his opinions are accordant with 
those of Henky Clay. It will he our purpose 
to expose the fallacy—the entire hollowness, in¬ 
deed—of this assertion. It will not be denied 
that the agitation of the slavery question is the 
main staple of the Republican party. Mr. 
Lincoln is the chief of the agitators to-day, 
and stands really in advance of Mr. Seward, 
as the author of the “Irrepressible Conflict.” 
But let us try Mr. Lincoln’s doctrines by those 
of Henry Clay. 

The Fugitive Slave Law. 

In his speech at Freeport, Illinois, on the 
27th of August, 1858, in reply to certain ques¬ 
tions propounded by Mr. Douglas, Mr. Lincoln 
said:— 

“As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave 
law, I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now 
hesitate to say, that I think, under the Constitution 
of the United States, the people of the Southern 
States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave 
law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say 
in regard to the existing Fugitive Slave law, further 
than that I think it should haoe been framed so as to 
be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, 
tvithout lessening its efficiency. And, inasmuch as we 
are not now in an agitation in regard to an alteration 
or modification of that law, I would not be the man 
to introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon the 
general question of slavery.” 

The objections to the Fugitive Slave law of 
1850 are, that it is inhuman, and unconstitu¬ 
tional in this,—that it deprives the fugitive 
of the right of habeas corpus and trial by 
jury, and confers upon commissioners judicial 
powers. It is sufficient to say, as to the first 


objection, that if the law be inhuman, so was 
the act of 1793, which passed the Senate una¬ 
nimously, the House of Representatives by a 
vote nearly unanimous, and was signed by 
George Washington. As to the constitution¬ 
ality of the law, we have only to refer to the 
decision of the Supreme Court in Ableman vs. 
Booth, and The United States vs. Booth. The 
court say:— 

“ But, although wo think it unnecessary to discuss 
these questions, yet, as they have been decided by 
the State court and are before us on the record, and 
we are not willing to be misunderstood, it is proper 
to say that, in the judgment of this court, the act of 
Congress commonly called the Fugitive Slave law is, 
IN all its provisions, fully authorized by the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States .”— 21 Howard’s Rep., 

p. 626. 

That was the unanimous opinion of the court, 
including Justices McLean and Curtis. And 
yet nine-tenths of Mr. Lincoln’s supporters 
deny the constitutionality of the law, and 
trample it under foot whenever opportunity 
occurs. 

The act of 1793 proved inefficient, and hence 
the act of 1850 was substituted therefor. The 
disposition of Mr. Lincoln to give the South an 
efficient law for the recovery of fugitive slaves 
can be readily tested by his action as a Repre¬ 
sentative in Congress. On Monday, January 
8, 1849, Mr. Meade, of Virginia, moved the 
suspension of the rules in the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives, to enable him to offer the following 
resolution:— 

“Whereas, it is the duty of the Congress of the 
United States to enact all laws necessary to enforce 
such provisions of the Constitution as were intended 
to protect the citizens of the several States in their 
rights of property, and past experience has proved 
that laws should be passed by Congress to enforce 
the second section of the fourth article of the Con¬ 
stitution, which requires that persons held to labor in 


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anyone State, escaping to another, shall he delivered 
up on claim of the party to whom such labor may be 
due: therefore, 

“liesolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary is 
hereby instructed to report a bill to this IlouSe, jjro- 
vidintj effectually for the apjjrehension and delivery 
of fuyitives from labor who have escaped or may 
hereafter escape from one State into another.”— Cony. 
Globe, vol. XX. p. 188. 

The vote on the suspension of the rules was 
yeas 79, nays 100; and the motion to suspend 
the rules, two-thirds not voting in the affirma¬ 
tive, was rejected. Among the nays was Abra¬ 
ham Lincoln. By that vote Mr. Lincoln indi¬ 
cated his opposition to any laAV providing more 
elfectually than the act of 1793 for the recovery 
of fugitive slaves. We have already seen, from 
his speech at Freeport, that the act of 1850 is, 
in his judgment, objectionable,—in other words, 
a bad law. Now let us see how far he agrees 
in these respects with Mr. Clay’s recorded 
opinions. 

Henry Clay on the Fugitive Slave Acts 
OF 1793 AND 1850. 

As chairman of the Committee of Thirteen, 
Mr. Clay reported to the Senate the Compro¬ 
mise Bill of 1850. With reference to the reco¬ 
very of fugitive slaves, the report says:— 

“An owner of a slave, it is quite notorious, can¬ 
not pursue his property, for the pui’pose of its reco¬ 
very, in some of the States, loithout imminent personal 
hazard. This is a deplorable state of things, which 
ought to bo remedied. The law of 1793 has been 
found wholly ineffectual, and requires more stringent 
enactments. There is especially a deficiency in the 
number of public functionaries authorized to afford 
aid in the seizure and arrest of fugitives. 

Numerous petitions have been presented, praying for 
a trial by jury in the case of arrest of fugitives from 
service or labor in the non-slaveholding States. It 
has been already shown that this would be contrary 
to practice and uniform usage in all similar cases. 
Under the name of a popular law and cherished in¬ 
stitution,—an institution, however, never applied in 
cases of preliminary proceedings, and only in cases 
of final trial,— there would be A complete mockery 
of justice, so far as the owner of the fugitive is con¬ 
cerned.”— Cong. Globe, vol. xxi. part 1, pp. 945,946. 

Thus it seems that IMr. Clay considered the 
act of 1793 “wholly ineffectual,”, and “more 
stringent enactments” necessaiy. To show 
that he approved the act of 1850 for the reco¬ 
very of fugitive slaves,—ill health kept him 
from the Senate ivhen that measure was finally i 
passed,—it is only necessary to direct attention 
to the “Declaration and Pledge” which, at the 
next session of the same Congress, in common 
with forty-two others, members of Congress, re¬ 
presenting all sections and parties, Mr, Clay 
solemnly made, ^•^not to support for the office of 
President, Vice-Pfesident, or of Senator, or 
Representative in Congress, or as a member of 
a State Legislature, any man, of whatever 
PARTY, who is not opposed to the disturbance” 
of the settlement [of the Slavery question] 
“effected by the compromise passed at the last 
I -Rsion of Congress.”—See Append. Cong. Globe, 

' d 1 xxix, p. 430, where it -wdll be found. 

Ihe Fugitive Slave law was one of the com¬ 


promises of 1850, and a vital one, without which 
the others would liave failed. 

The Duty of Citizens under the Fugitive 
Slave Act. 

Upon this point—the duty of citizens to aid 
in the execution of the laiv, and not to harbor 
fugitive slaves—Mr. Clay was empliatic. In his 
speech on his Compromise Resolutions, in the 
Senate, on the 6th of February, 1850, he said:— 

“I do not .Ray that a private individual is obliged 
to make the tour of his w'hole State in order to a.ssist 
the oivncr of a slave to recover his property; but 1 
DO say, if be is present when the owner of a slave 
is about to assert his rights and regain possession of 
his property, that he, that erery man j^resent, whether 
officer or agent of the State Governments, or private 
individued, is bound to assist in the execution of 
the laws of the country.” — Append. Conq. Globe, vol. 
xxii. part 1, p. 122, 

Again, in the Senate, on the 13th of May, 
1850, he said:— 

“Sir, there is one opinion prevailing^—I hope not 
extensively—in some of the nou-slaveholding States 
which nothing we can do will conciliate. I allude to 
that opinion that asserts that there is a higher law — 
a divine law—a natural law— which entitles a man, 
under whose roof a runaway has come, to give him as¬ 
sistance, and succor, and hospitality. Where is the 
difference between receiving and harboring a hwivn 
fugitive slave and going to the plantation of his 
MASTER and STEALING HIM AivAY? A divine law! a 
natural law! And who are they that venture to tell 
us what is divine and what is natural law? Where 
are their credentials of proyjhecy ?”— Apipend. Cong. 
Globe, vol. XX, part 1, p. 572. 

Views of Mr. Lincoln’s Leading Friends on 
THE Same Sur.ject. 

Extract of Joshua R, Giddtngs’s letters to 
Hon. Thomas Corwin, in 1859: — 

“In your last speech at Xenia, you say it is the 
sacred duty of every good citizen to obey the law 
when the Legislature and Judiciary have decided it 
such. This doctrine of submission is unsuited to our 
age. Republicans hold it the sacred duty 

of every good, citizen to resist despotism in every shape, 
although approved by the L'gislature and by the Judi¬ 
ciary. They look upon that man as already enslaved 
who fears to spfeak and act his own enlightened con¬ 
victions. Submission to despotic power has become 
the disgrace of our nation. The doctrine has become 
offensive to every friend of liberty. 

“You further say. if men disobey the law you 
would bring their heads to the block,—provided the 
law should rOquire it. This declaration of hosli’ity 
to the Republicans generally was unnecessary and 
unkind. Had it come from a slaveholder or servile 
Democrat, it would have excited no attention. The 
Republicans of Lorain county trampled upon that law, 
rescued a fellow-being from slavery, and set him at 
liberty. Utey indicted the men who rwcaptin -.d him, 
and would have sent them to the penitentiary had not 
THE Administration receded prom its attempts 

TO PUNISH THE RESCUERS AND PERMITTED THE FU¬ 
GITIVE TO ENJOY HIS FREEDOM. YoU WOuld bring 
their heads to the block.” 

Extract of the speech of Hon. Owen Love- 
joy, of Illinois, in the House of Representa¬ 
tives, February 21, 1860:— 

“ No human being, black or white, bond o' f ee, 
native or foreign, infidel or Ciiri U an, :vcr cane 
to my door and asked for food and sheuer, lu the 


In Exchange 
Peabody Inst, of Baltos 
June 14 1927 





3 



name of a common humanity or of a pitying Christ, 
who uxd not receive it. This I have done. This I 
mean to do, as long as God lets me live. I shall 
never‘bewray him that waudereth,’ I shall never 
become a slave-catcher. -S- 

“ Is it desired to call attention to this fact? Pro¬ 
claim it, then, upon the house-tops. Write it on eve^y 
leaf that tx'embles in the forest, ri^ake it blaze from 
the sun at high noon and shine forth in the milder 
radiance of every star that bedecks the firmament of 
God. Let it echo through all the arches of heaven, 
and reverberate and bellow along all the deep gorges 
of hell, where slave-catchers will be very likely to 
hear it. Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois, 
three-quarters of a mile east of the village, and he 
aids every fugitive that comes to his door and a^iks 
it. Thou invisible demon of Slavery, dost thou 
think to cross my humble threshold and forbid mo 
to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the house¬ 
less? T BID YOU DEFIANCE IN THE NAME 
OP MY GOD!'’-» 

Extract of the speech of Hon. Charles B. 
Sedgwick, of New York, in the House of Re¬ 
presentatives, March 26, 1860 :— 

“ We do not propose the repeal of this law ; let it 
stand, a fit monument to the folly and madness of 
the times; but is it not enough to try the temper, as 
well as the faith, of the believer in human progi'ess, 
that such a law could be passed by an enlightened 
Republic in the nineteenth century, and that it is 
made not only the test of the citizen’s loyalty to his 
country, but of the Christian’s to his God? It must 
have been expected—I believe it was intended—that 
such a law should produce counter-legislation in the 
free States—that personal-liberty bills would be 
passed, as they have been—though not half as 
stringent as they ought to he—to discharge the duty 
which every independent State owes to each of its 
citizens, howev'er humble,—I mean protection to their 
personal liberty. 

“ It must have been expected that so infamous a 
law would have been evaded by underground rail¬ 
roads and b}"^ all other honorable methods, xind let 
me assure gentlemen that they deceive themselves if 
they suppose that there is any real difi'erence in sen¬ 
timent among Northern people in relation to this law. 
All parties wink at its eva.sion, and all sympathy is 
with the fugitive who proves, by a successful flight, 
that there is enough man in him to make an earnest 
eflort for freedom. He who can suppress such sym¬ 
pathy, and on the requisition of the marshal, under 
the fifth section attempt to show that he is a good 
citizen by ‘aiding and assisting in the prompt and 
efficient execution of this law whenever his services 
arc required,’ ought himself to be a slave.”f 


* The Chicago “ Democrat,"’ of which .John Wentworth is 
editor, in noticing tlie renoinination of Mr. Lovejoy for Con¬ 
gress b}' the llepublicaus of his district, said :— 

“Mr. Lovejoy and Mr. Lincoln are warm personal friends 
and politicaf supporters of each other. Mr. Lovejoy was in 
favor of the nomination of Mr. Lincoln for President, and 
Mr. Lincoln would like to see Mr. Lovejoy returned to 
Congress. Mr. Lincoln is for using all the constitutional 
means in his power for the suppression of slavery. This is 
all Mr. Lovejoy is for. Should Lincoln be elected President 
and Lovejoy returned to Congress, there is no man who 
would enjoy Mr. Lincoln’s confidence to a greater degree 
than Mr. Lovejoy. There is no .State in the Union where 
the Kepublicans are so sound upon the Slavery question as 
Illinois. Indeed, Illinois Republicans know of no other 
question e.xcept that between slavery extension AND 
SLAVERY EXTINCTION. A man that supposes that 
Owen Lovejoy does not speak for all the Kepublicans in 
Illinois, when he speaks in Congress, is laboring under an 
inexcusable delusion.” 

t Mr. Sedgwick does not represent public opinion at the 
North fairly when he says all parties “ wink at” the evasion 


Extract of the speech of the Hon. C. H. Van 
Wyck, of New York, in the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives, March 7, 1860:— 

“You reproach us because we will not do the 
menial service of hunting down jmur runaway slaves. 
There is not a man on this floor, of your own num¬ 
ber, who would thus demean bis manhood or disgrace 
his nobility. In my district, there may be two or 
three men who believe with you that slavery is a 
divine institution and ought to be extended; there 
are none who would resist the execution of your 
Fugitive Slave law; but I am frank and proud to tell 
you, 1 do not believe there is one who iconld place his 
hand upon the heaving breast of the f eeing fugitive 
who is ])anting for libertii as the hart panteth for the 
water-brooks, although there be symbols of owner¬ 
ship, in the brand of the master on his cheek, the 
rust of the iron on his limbs, and the scars of the 
lash on bis back. No, sir! I rejoice that there is not 
one who, if he gave him a cup of cold water, would 
not feel that he could claim the blessing, ‘ Inasmuch 
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it unto me;’ not one icho, if 
asked for bread, would give him a stone ; if asked for 
a fsh, would give him a serpent.” 

Extract of speech of John A. Bingham, of 
Ohio, in the House of Representatives, April 
24, I860:— 

“ That fagitions law [the Fugitive Slave act] in- 
stdts the conscience of the people, bg declaring it a 
crime to exercise that highest duty enjoined by God upon 
man, — charity. That law also discriminates most 
offensively in favor of slave property over all other 
movable property, by providing that the slave-owner, 
or claimant, may, on his affidavit, have his property 
restored to him at the national expense; while if 
the cattle of a Northern farmer escape into another 
State he must reclaim them at bis own expense.” 

A small volume might be filled with similar 
extracts of the letters and speeches of Mr. 
Lincoln’s leading supporters. With a few ex¬ 
ceptions, every man of them of prominence, in 
Congress or out, denounces the Fugitive Slave 
act as either unconstitutional or inhuman. 

The Admission of Slave States. 

Mr. Lincoln, in his speech at Freeport during 
the Illinois canvass of 1858, with respect to the 
admission of ^lave States into the Union, 
said:— 

“In regard to the other question, of whether I am 
pledged to the admission of any more slave States 
into the Union, I state to you very frankly that I 
would be exceedingly sorry ever to he put in a posi¬ 
tion of having to j>ass upon that question. I should be 
exceedingly glad to knoio that there would pever be 
another slave Slate admitted into the Union y but I 
must add, that if slavery shall be kept out of the 
Territories during the territorial e.xistence of’any 
one given Territory, and then the people shall, 
having a fair chance and a clear field, when they 
come to adopt the Constitution, do such an extraor¬ 
dinary thing as to adopt a slave Constitution, unin¬ 
fluenced by the aetu.al presence of the institution 


of the Fugitive Slave law. He represents the Syracuse 
district, where the Abolitionists are powerful, and makes 
the fanaticism of his own immediate supporters the stand¬ 
ard of public sentiment throughout the North. The North¬ 
ern Democracy stand hy the Constitution and yield obe¬ 
dience to the law; and so does the strong conservative ele¬ 
ment in the North, which, although not united with the 
Democracy, is hostile to the Republicans. 








4 



among them, I see no alternative, if Ave own the 
country, hut to admit them into the Union.” 

The plain English of this is, that if slavery 
be NOT “kept out of the Territories during the 
territorial existence of any one given Terri¬ 
tory,” Mr. Lincoln would be opposed, and is 
pledged to oppose the admission of a new State 
seeking admission into the Union, under sucli 
circumstances, Avith a pro-slavery Constitution. 
He is in this a few steps only behind the Ultra- 
ists of his party,—the rulers, in fact,—Avho 
boldly proclaim that no more slave states 
should be admitted into the Union. This is the 
doctrine of his friends in Illinois beyond ques¬ 
tion ; and it is the doctrine of at least four- 
fifths of his supporters. Look at the resolu¬ 
tions passed by the Republicans in the House 
of Representatives of the Illinois Legislature, 
in February, 1855, as the platform on which a 
Senator should be chosen to succeed General 
Shields. Then bear in mind that, with two 
exceptions, every man who voted for the reso¬ 
lutions offered by Mr. Owen Love joy, now a 
Representative in Congress, voted on the suc¬ 
ceeding day for Abuaham Lincoln for United 
States Senator. Here are the resolutions re¬ 
ferred to; and it will be seen that they are as 
ultra as the most ultra Abolitionist will de¬ 
mand :— 

“ Whereas, Human slavery is a violation of the 
principles of natural and rcA'ealed rights; and 
whereas, the fathers of the Revolution, fully imbued 
with the spirit of these principles, declared freedom 
to be the inalienable birthright of all men; and 
Avhereas, the preamble to the Constitution of the 
United States avers that that instrument av as ordained 
to establish justice, and secure the blessings of liberty 
to ourselves and our posterity; and Avhereas, in 
furtherance of the above principles, slavery Avas for- 
GA'Cr prohibited in the old NorthAvest Territory, and 
more recently in all that Territory lying Avest and 
north of the State of Missouri, by the act of the 
Federal Government; and whereas, the repeal of the 
prohibition last referred to Avas contrary to the 
Avishes of the people of Illinois, a violation of an 
implied compact long deemed sacred by the citizens 
of the United States, and a wide departure from the 
uniform action of the General Government in relation 
to the extension of slavery: therefore, 

“ Jlesolced, hy the House of Jiepresentatives, the 
Senate eoncurriny therein, That our Senators in‘Con¬ 
gress be instructed, and our RepresentatiA^es requested, 
to introduce, if not otherwise introduced, and to A^ote 
for, a bill to restore such prohibition to the aforesaid 
Territories, and also to extend a similar proh ibition 
to all te)’ritory which now belongs to the United States, 
or which may hereafter come binder their jurisdiction. 

Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be in¬ 
structed, and our RepresentatiA’'es requested, to vote 
against the admission of any State into the Union the 
Constitution of which does not jirohibit slavery, whether 
the territory out of Avhich such State may have been 
formed shall have been acquired by conquest, treaty, 
purchase, or from original territory of the United 
States. 

“ Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be in¬ 
structed, and our llejyresentatives requested, to intro¬ 
duce and vote for a bill to repeal an act entitled ‘An 
act respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaj)- 
ing from the service of their masters f and, failing in 
that, for such a modification of it as shall secure the 
eight of habeas corpus and trial by jury before the 


regularly-constituted authorities of the State, to nil 
persons claimed OAving service or labor.” 

Heney Clay on the Admission of New 
States. 

Maine and Missouri, the one a free and the 
other a slave State, applied for admission at the 
session of Congress of 1819-20. The North 
opjiosed the admission of Missouri, because of 
the slavery clause in her Constitution, and the 
South, in retaliation, opposed the admission of 
Maine. Mr. Clay, in his speech at that crisis 
in our history, said;— 

‘MIe thought that Maine ought to be admitted 
into the Union; he thought the same of Missouri; 
and, although he might be forced to withhold his 
assent to the admission of Maine if a majority of 
this House should (Avhich he trusted they Avould not) 
inpose unconstitutional restrictions on the admission 
of Missouri, he should do it with great reluctance .”— 

■ Annals of Congress, 1819-20, p. 842. 

And, in 1850, when Mr. So¥le, of Louisiana, 
on the 15th day of June, offered the folloAving 
amendment to the Compromise bill, Mr. Clay 
voted for it:— 

“And Avhen the said Territory, [New Mexico,] or 
any portion of the same, shall be admitted as a State, 
it shall be received into the Union avitii or avithout 
SLAVERY, as the Constitution may prescribe at the 
time of admission.” — Append. Cong. Globe, A'ol.xxii. 
part 2, pp. 902, 911. 

Slavery in the District of Columbia. 

Mr. Lincoln’s views as to the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia by Congress 
will be found in the following extract of his 
speech at Freeport, Illinois, in 1858, from which 
we have already quoted:— 

“ The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia. In relation to 
that I have my mind very distinctly made up. I 
should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in 
the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress pos¬ 
sesses the constitutional poAver to abolish it. Yet, as 
a member of Congress, I should not, with my present 
views, be in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia, unless it would be upon 
these conditions: First, that the abolition should be 
gradual; second, that it should be on a vote of the 
majority of qualified voters in the District; and third, 
that compensation should be made to unwilling 
OAvners. With ’these three conditions, I confess I 
Avould be exceedingly glad to see Congress abolish 
slaA^ery in the District of Columbia, and, in the lan¬ 
guage of Henry Clay, ‘SAVeep from our Capital 
that foul blot upon our nation.’ ” 

Mr. Lincoln, since his first appearance in 
public life, has modified his views somewhat on 
this subject: still, they differ Avidely from those 
of Mr. Clay, as we shall see presently. At 
this point we will remark that Henry Clay 
never, at any time in his life, proposed to 
“sweep away from our Capital that foul blot upon 
our nation,'’^ —slavery in the District of Colum¬ 
bia. He never made any such assertion Avith 
respect to slavery. Mr. Lincoln misrepresents 
him. The language quoted by Mr. Lincoln 
was used by Mr. Clay in reference to the slave- 
trade in the Distriet of Columbia, Avhich was 
abolished by Congress in 1850. 




5 


Henry Clay on Slaveby in the District 
OF Columbia. 

On the 12th of January, 1888, Mr. Clay 
offered a series of resolutions in tlie Senate, as 
a substitute for the resolutions of Mr. Calhoun 
on the Slavery question, one of which was as 
follows :— 

“ Renolved, That the interference by the citizens of 
any of the States with a view to the abolition of 
slavery in this District is endangering to the rights 
and security of the people of the District, and that 
any act or measure of Congress designed to abolish 
slavery in this District iconld be a violation of the 
faith, implied by the cession by the States of Virginia 
and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people 
of the slaveholding States, and have a direct and in¬ 
evitable tendency to disturb and endanyer the Union” 
— Append. Cony. Globe, vol. vi. p. 98. 

Speaking to the subject of the resolution, Mr. 
Clay said:— 

“ My idea in framing that resolution was to throw 
around the District of Columbia every security in 
these abstract propositions. One was, the pUyhted 
faith of this Government ?'a the transaction by which 
thfi District was acquired. The next was, that you 
have no right to abolish slavery without indemnity. 
The third was, that you cannot do it without excit¬ 
ing a degree of alarm in the Southern States of this 
Union, transcending the benefits of any results.”— 
Append. Cony. Globe, vol. vi. p. 60. 

On the 29th of January, 1850, Mr. Clay in¬ 
troduced his celebrated “Compromise Eesolu- 
tions” in the Senate. The fifth resolution was 
as follows:— 

“ Resolved, That it is inexpedient to abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia, whilst that institution 
continues to exist in the State of Maryland, without 
the consent op that State, without the consent 
of the people of the District, and without just com¬ 
pensation to the owners of slaves within the District.” 
— Append. Cony. Globe, vol. xxii. part 2, p. 115. 

Mr. Clay addressed the Senate on the 6th 
day of February, 1850, on the subject embraced 
in the foregoing resolution. We make the fol¬ 
lowing extracts of his speech:— 

“ While I admitted [said Mr. Clay, alluding to his 
speech in the Senate in 1838] the power to exist in 
Congress, and exclusively in Congress, to legislate 
in all cases whatsoever,—and consequently in the 
case of the abolition of slavery within this District, 
if it deemed it proper to do so,—I contended upon 
that occasion, as I contend now, that it was a power 
which Conyress cannot, IN CONSCIENCE AND GOOD 
FAITH, exercise while the institution of slavery exists 
within the State of Maryland.” 

Again, he said:— 

“This implied faith, this honorable obligation, this 
honesty and q^ropn'iety of keeping in constant view 
the object of the cession,—these were the considera¬ 
tions which, in 1838, urged me, as they now influ¬ 
ence me in the preparation of the resolution which 
I submit for your consideration. Now, as then, I do 
think that Congress, as an honorable body, aettny in 
yood faith, according to the nature and purpose and 
objects of the cession at the time it was made, and 
looking at the condition of the ceding States at this 
time, — cannot, icithout forfeiture of all those 

obliyations of honor VilllCH MEN OP HONOR AND NA¬ 
TIONS OF HONOR AVILL RESPECT CiS much as if they 
were found literally, in so many icords, in the bond 
INTERFERE AVITH THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY 


IN THIS District, without a violation of those obli¬ 
gations, not, in my opinion, less sacred or less 
BINDING than if they had been inserted in the consti¬ 
tutional instrument itself.” — Append. Cony. Globe, vol. 
xxii. part 2, p. 121. 

That speech of Henry Clay is a Avithering 
rebuke to Mr. Lincoln and iiis supporters, Avho 
would abolish slavery in the District of Colum¬ 
bia under any circumstances, “Avithout the 
consent of the State of Maryland.” And yet 
he and his supporters pretend to stand by the 
doctrines of Henry Clay ! 

But, while Mr. Lincoln Avould not, as he said 
I in his Freeport speech, “be in favor of endea¬ 
voring to abolish slavery in the District of Co¬ 
lumbia” upon the conditions he put, he does 
not disclaim a Avillingness to sec it abolished 
without those conditions. 

The Inhibition of Slavery in the Terri- 

T03.IIES. 

IMie only difference between Mr. Lincoln 
and the Southern extremists is, tliat he favors 
Congressional intervention to prohibit slavery 
in the Territories, Avhile they invoke the same 
power to protect and thus, in reality, to es¬ 
tablish it, without regard to the will of the in¬ 
habitants. The Chioago Convention, which put 
IMr. Lincoln in nomination for the Presidency, 
adopted the following, among other resolu¬ 
tions:— 

“Eighth. That the normal condition of all the 
territory of the United States is that of freeilom. 
That, as our Piepublican fathers, when they had 
abolished slaA’^ery in ail our national territory, or¬ 
dained that no person should be deprived of life, 
libertA’’, or property Avithout due process of lavv, it 
becomes our duty, by legislation, Avhenever .><11011 
legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision 
of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it. 
JhiT? we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial 
Legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence 
to slavery in any Territory of the United States.” 

That resolution Mr. Lincoln is pledged to, 
and the doctrine Avhich it proclaims has received 
his consistent support for years. As a mem¬ 
ber of the House of Representatives, during 
the Thirtietli Congress, from December, 1847, 
to March 4, 1849, he voted over and again—^ 
forty-two times,indeed—in faA’or of the ‘‘ Wilmot 
Proviso.” In his speech at Freeport in 1858, 
in debate Avith Mr. Douglas, he said:—■ 

“I am impliedly, if not ex\i\'ess\y, qd'e-dyed to a be¬ 
lief in the right and duty of Conyress to prohibit 
slavery in the United States Territories.” 

And again, at Alton, he said :— 

“What I insist upon is, that the ncAV Territories 
shall be kept free from slavery Avhile in a Territorial 
condition.” 

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, 
and denial of authority anywhere to legalize it 
tlierein, is the corner-stone of the Republican 
creed. What was the position of Henry 
Cl.ay? 

Henry Clay on Slavery in the Territories. 

In his speech in the Senate on the 5th of 
February, 1850, Mr. Clay said:— 

I “The poAver. then, Mr. President, in my oplnt(.fn, 
1 and 1 extend it to the introduction as well as to the 





6 


prohibition of slavery in the new Territories, does 
exist in Congress. 

“ It is better for them, I said to myself, it is better 
f«r the South, tliat there should be non-action as to 
slavery both north and south of that line,—far better 
that there should be non-action on both sides of 
the line, than that there should be action by inter¬ 
diction on the one side without action for the admis¬ 
sion upon the other side of the line. Is it not so?” 

“ If there be a majority who are in favor of inter¬ 
dicting slavery north of that line, there ought to he 
a majority, if justice is done to the South, to admit 
slavery south of thvit line.” — Append. Gong. Globe, vol. 
xxii. pp. 117, 125, 126. 

Thus it is seen that Mr. Lincoln’s dogma 
of intervention finds no support in the opinions 
of Henry Clay. He was for non-intervention, 
and held that Congress could either introduce 
or prohibit slavery in a Territory; while Mr. 
Lincoln, insists that Congress has no oUier 
power except the power to prohibit. 

In 1838, Mr. Clay offered the following reso¬ 
lution in the Senate :— 

“Resolved, That any attempt of Congress to abolish 
slavery in any Territory in which it exists would 
create serious alarm and just apprehension in the 
States sustaining that domestic institution ,• ivould be 
a violation of good faith toicards the inhabitants of 
such Territory who have been permitted to settle icith 
and hold slaves, because the people of such Territory 
have not asked for the abolition of slavery therein, 
and because that, when anj^ such Territory shall be 
admitted into the Union, the people thereof will be 
entitled to decide that question for themselves.”— 
Apjoend. Cong. Globe, vol. vi. pp. 96, 97. 

And the eighth in the series of his Compro¬ 
mise Resolutions of 1850 is as follow^s:— 

“ Resolved, That as slavery does not exist by law, 
and is not likely to bo introduced into any Territory 
acquired by the United States from the Republic of 
Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress to jjrovide by 
law either for its introduction into or exclusion from 
any part of said Territor.y, and that appropriate Ter¬ 
ritorial Governments ought to be established by Con¬ 
gress in all of said territory not assigned as the 
boundaries of the proposed State of California, ivith- 
out the adoption of any restrictioyi or condition on the 
subject of slavery.” — Cong. Globe, vol. xxi. part 1, p. 
246. 

Mr. Clay twice voted against the “Wilmot 
Proviso” during the pendency of the Compro¬ 
mise Measures, first when it was offered by 
Mr. Seward, of New York, and second when 
it was offered by Mr. Chase, of Ohio. (See 
Senate Journal, pp. 375, 376.) He spoke of it 
during the debate as'“offensive” and “odious,” 
and finally, vexed at the persistency wdth which 
it was pressed, he said ;— 

‘‘It is in a high degree of probability that all the 
newly-acquired Territories ivill ultimately be dedi¬ 
cated to the cause of free soil, without the Wilmot 
Proviso. Do they hug that precious ‘Wilmot’ to 
their bosoms, that nothing but that will do ? that no 
other obstacles, no other preventatives, to the intro¬ 
duction of slavery in the Tei’ritories will satisfy 
them but Wilmot, Wilmot, WiL.\roT?”— Append. 
Cong. Globe, vol. xxii. part 2, ji. 1415. 

Speaking of the Compromise Measures, Mr. 


Clay said, further, that the principle of non^ 
intervention was tlie ‘•‘■great principle'’^ which 
pervaded the bill. Here is liis language :— 

“Mr. President, the great principle which prevails 
through this bill is the })rinciple of non-intervention 
on the subject of slavery. '*■ 

“ Wliat, in other words, is the difference 
between the direct action of congressional legislation 
upon the subject of slavery to introduce or to pro¬ 
hibit it, and the exercise of this power by Congress 
to repeal existing laws within the Territory, which 
laws have declared the abolition of slavery ? If it is 
so, the great principle of non-intervention seems to 
be as clearly violated in attempts to repeal local 
laws as it could be violated in attempts by the power 
of Congressional enactments to introduce or prohibit 
slavery.”— Append. Cong. Globe, vol. xxii. jiart 2, p. 
1417. 

Again,'he said:— 

“1 have said I never could vote for it myself; and 
I repeat that I never can and never will vote, and 
no earthly power will ever make me vote, to spread 
slavery over Territories where it does not exist. Still, 
if there be a majority who are for interdicting slavery 
north of the line, there ought to be a majority, if 
justice is done to the South, to admit slavery south 
of that line. And if there be a majority to accom¬ 
plish both of these i^urposes, although I cannot con¬ 
cur in their action, yet I shall be one of the last to 
create any disturbance. I shall be one of the first to 
acquiesce in that legislation, although it is contrary 
to my own judgment and to my conscience. I hope, 
then, to keep the whole of these matters untouched by 
Congress tipyon the sidgect of slavery, leaving it open 
and undecided. Non-action by Congress is the best 
for the South, and best for •all the views which the 
South have disclosed to ns from time to time, as cor¬ 
responding to their wishes. Congress is non¬ 

acting north and south of that line; or rather, if 
Congress agrees to the plan which I propose, extend¬ 
ing no line, it leaves the entire theatre of the whole 
cession of these Territories untouched by legislative 
enactments either to exclude or admit slavery.” — Ap- 
pend. Cong. Globe, vol. xxii. part 1, p. 126. 

This extract of his speech on his Compromise 
Resolutions, of w'hich the Republicans are 
accustomed to cite so much only as manifests 
his repugnance to establishing slavery in the 
Territories, is, in fact, among the strongest of 
Mr. Clay’s repeated denunciations of the doc¬ 
trine of Congressional intervention contended 
for on the one side by the Republicans, and on 
the other by Southern extremists of the Yancey 
school. Hence we find that Mr. Clay voted 
for Mr. Douglas’s motion, and again for that 
of Mr. Norris, of Neiv Hampshire, to strike 
out of the Compromise Bill the restriction on 
the Territorial Legislature from passing any 
law eiiher “ establishing or prohibiting African 
slavery.”— Cong. Globe, yo\. xxi. part 2, p. 1135; 
Append. Cong. Globe, vol. xxii. part 2, p. 1473. 

On the 18th of May, 1850, in reply to Mr. 
Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, Mr. Clay 
spoke as follows :— 

“Mr. Clay. —I do not understand the Senator 
from Mississippi as proposing that if any one shall 
carry slaves into the Territoi'y—although by the laws 
of the Territory he cannot take them—the legislative 
hands of the Territorial Government should bo so tied 
as to prevent it, saying he shall not enjoy the fruits 








7 


of their labor. If the Senator from Mississippi 
means to say that'— 

'• Mr. Davis.— do mean to say it. 

“Mr. CnAY.— If the object of the Senator is to 
provide that slaves may he introduced into the Terri¬ 
tory contrary to the lex loci, and, being introduced, 
nothing shall be done by the Legislature to impair the 
rights of owners to hold slaves thus bought, I certainly 
cannot vote for it. While I am willing to lay 

ofi the Territories without the .Wilmot Proviso on 
the one hand, or without an attempt to introduce a 
clause for the introduction of slavery into the Terri¬ 
tories,—while I am for rejecting both the one and the 
other, —I am content that the law shall prevail, and 
if there be any diversity of opinion as to it, / am 
willing it shall be settled by the highest judicial 
authority of the country.” — Cong, Globe, vol. xxi. part 
1, p. 1003. 

On another occasion, Mr. Clay said :—• 

“ The provisions of the bill are that the people are 
^eft free to do as they choose. There is, indeed, one 
provision which did not meet with my aiiprobation, 
and with which I would have been better satisfied 
had it been left out, and that is, the provision which 
does not permit the government of the Territories to 
ESTABLISH OR PROHIBIT SLAVERY. But it was intro¬ 
duced at the instance of some Southern gentle¬ 
men.”— Append. Cong. Globe, vol. xxii. part 2, p. 1410. 

And, again, in speaking of slavery in the 
Tei'ritories;— 

“ Is it not a much more fitting subject for the con¬ 
sideration of the local Legislatures which we propose, 
by this bill or some other bill, to establish—is it not, 
I say, a mtich more fitting subject for such local Legis¬ 
latures to consider? We hav'e never been among 
them,- we know nothing of them; but the Legis¬ 
latures of the localities will be particularly informed 
of its operation, and if it is oppressive, or tyrannical, 
or injurious, they will doubtless repeal it.”— Cong. 
Globe, vol. xxi part 2, p. 1142. 

These extracts of Mr. Clay’s speeches prove 
that he occupied the precise position on the 
subject of slavery in the Territories in 1850 
which Mr. Douglas held then and holds to¬ 
day. They px'ove, further, that his doctrines 
and those of Mr. Lincoln and his supporters 
are not only discordant, but widely asunder. 
The “Old-Line Whig,” therefore, w'ho follows 
Mr. Lincoln as a disciple of Henry Clay, fol¬ 
lows a false pretender and hugs a delusion. 

We shall close this branch of our subject by 
an extract of Mr. Clay’s speech of May 13,1850, 
as further evidence of his hostility to the 
“Wilmot Proviso,” wliich was neither more nor 
less than Mr. Lincoln’s pledge to inhibit 
slavery in the Territories. He said :— 

“ What are we looking at? The ‘ Proviso’—an ab¬ 
straction always—thrust upon the South by the 
North against all the necessities of the case, against 
all the warnings which the North ought to have lis¬ 
tened to, coming from the South : pressed unneces¬ 
sarily for any Northern object; opposed, I admit, 
by the South with a degree of earnestness uncalled 
for, I think, by the nature of the provision, but with 
a degree of earnestness natural to the South, and 
which the North, perhaps, would have displayed if 
a reversal of the condition of the two sections of the 
Union could have taken place. Why do you of the 
North press it ? You say because it is in obedience 
to certain sentiments in behalf of human freedom 


and human rights which you entertain. You are 
likely to accomplish those objects at once by the 
progress of events^ without pressing this obnoxious 
measure. You may retort, ‘Why is it opposed at 
the South ?’ It is opposed at the South, because the 
South Jeels that xvhen once legislation iqjon the subject 
of slavery begins, there is no seeing where it is to end. 
Begin it in the District of Columbia, begin it in the 
Territories of Utah and New 2Iexico and California ; 
assert your power there to-day, and in spite of your 
PROTESTATIONS— and you are not wanting in making 
pi-otestatious—that you have no purpose of extend¬ 
ing it to the Southern States, what security can you 
give them that a new sect will not arise with a new 
version of the Constitution, or with something above 
or below the Constitution, which shall authorize 
them to carry their notions into the bosoms of the 
slaveholding States, and endeavor to emancipate 
from bondage all the slaves there? Sir, the South 
has felt that her security lies in denying at the thresh¬ 
old your right to touch the subject of slavery.” — Ap¬ 
pend. Cong. Globe, vol. xxii. part 1, p. 581. 

The Decisions oe the Supreme Court and 
THE Higher Law Doctrine. 

Mr. Lincoln professes to be a believer in 
the declaration of Mr. Buchanan that slavery 
exists in the Territories by virtue of the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States. His construc¬ 
tion of the opinion in the “Dred Scott Case” 
is, that it carries slavery into the Territories in 
spite of the local law,—in other words, even 
forces it on a reluctant people. And jet, so 
believing, in his speech at Chicago, on the 10th 
of July, 1858, Mr. Lincoln said:— 

“If I were in Congress, and a vote should come 
up on a question whether slaverj'^ should be pro¬ 
hibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott 
decision, I would imte that it should.” 

That is the doctrine uniformly held by the 
Republican party. They care nothing for the 
decisions of courts where slavery is concerned 
unless the decisions confirm to their individual 
opinions. Their doctrine, and Mr. Lincoln’s 
doctrine, is the “higher law,*’ and the right of 
private judgment and individual action, no 
matter what the law may be or the courts 
decide. 

Henry Clay’s Opinions on the same 
Subject. 

Mr. Clay was a law-abiding man, and always 
held that the Supreme Court of the United 
States is the final arbiter in all disputed points 
of Constitutional law. He yielded implicit 
obedience, therefore, to its authority. Upon 
this subject, and especially with respect to 
decisions of the court touching slavery in the 
Territories, on the 18th of June, 1850, he ad¬ 
dressed the Senate as follows :— 

“I am willing, whether there be a local law esta¬ 
blishing or prohibiting slavery, or whether the Con¬ 
stitution of the United States does or does not carry 
along with it the right to transport slaves into that 
country, (the Territories of New Mexico and Utah,) 
I am willing to leave it to the Judiciary of the United 
States itself; but I am not willing to abolish the local 
laws before that decision is given, not only because I 
think it would be a violation of the course which 
the Senate has hitherto pursued, especially in adopt- 






as citizens, are equal, but renew the broader, better 
declaration,—including both these and much more ,— 
that all men are created equal/' 

He repeated liis tlieory that all men are 
created equal, and hence that there can be no 
inferior race rightly held in slawery at Chicago, 
in July, 1858. He then said;— 


ing the provision of the tenth section, but because it 
is unnecessary, if the Constitution does entitle any 
man to carry every description of property into those 
Territories.”— Append, Cong. Globe, \o\. xxii. part2, 
p. 916. 

At anotlier stage of the debate Mr. Clay 
said:— 

'' Now, what ought to be done more satisfactory to 
both sides of the question, to the free States and to 
the slaveholding States, than to apply the principle 
of non-intervention to the state of the law in New 
Mexico, and to leave the question of slavery or no 
slavery to he decided hy the only competent authority 
that can definitely settle it forever, the authority (f the 
Siipreme Court of the United States?” — Append.Cong. 
Globe, vol. xxii. part 2, p. 1464. 

An extract of his speech in the Senate, on 
the 13th of May, 1850, denunciatory of the 
‘^higher law” doctrine, has been used in these 
pages already; but, inasmuch as the Hepubli- 
cans, who were originally Whigs, profess great 
reverence for the teaching of Henry Clay, we 
shall reproduce it. Here it is:— 

allude [said Mr. Clay] to that opinion that 
asserts that there is a higher laAv—a divine law—a 
natural law—which entitles a man under whose roof 
a runaAvay has come, to give him assistance and 
succor and hospitality. Where is the difference be¬ 
tween receiving and harboring a known fugitive 
slave, and going to the plant.ation of his master and 
stealing him away ? A divine law ! a natural hiAV ! 
And who are they that venture to tell us what is 
divine and what is natural law? Where are their 
credentials of prophecy? Why, sir, we are told that 
the other day, at a meeting of some of these people 
at New York, Moses and all the prophets were I’e- 
jeeted, and that the name even of our blessed Saviour 
was treated with contempt and blasphemy by those 
propagators of a divine larv, of a natural law, Avhieh 
they have discor^ered above all human laws and 
constitutions. * 

Heaven supersedes the parchment from government. 
wad, reckless, and abominable theories, which strike 
at the foundation of all property and threaten to 
crush in ruins the fabric of civilized society.” — Ap>- 
pend. Cong. Globe, vol. xxii. part 1, p. 572. 

Negro Equality under the Declaration of 
Independence. 

In his speech at Chicago, in September, 1856, 
at a political banquet, Mr. Lincoln, following 
in the lead of Charles Sumner, Joshua R. 
Giddings, Owen Lovejoy, and other fanatics 
of that stamp, struck out for the doctrine of 
negro equality with the white man. He said, 
(we quote from the Illinois State Journal, pub¬ 
lished at Springfield, of September 16, 1856):— 

“ That central idea, in our political opinion, at the 
beginning wa^, and until recently continued to be, 
the equality of men. And although it was ahvays 
submitted patiently to, ivhatever inequality there 
seemed to be, as a matter of actual necessity, its con¬ 
stant Avorking has been a steady progress toAvards 
the mACTICAL equality op all men. 

‘‘Let past differences as nothing he; and Avith 
steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the 
good old central ideas of the Ilepublic. We can do 
it. The human heart is Avith us ; God is Avith us. 
We .shall again be able not to declare that all the 
States, as States, are equal, nor yet that all citizens. 


“My friends, I haA’’e detained you about as long 
as I desired to do ; and I have only to say, let us 
discard all this quibbling about this man ami the 
other man—this race and that race and the other 
race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed 
in an inferior position—discarding our standard that 
we have left us. Let us discard all these thing.s, and 
unite as one people throughout this land, until we 
shall once more stand up declaring that all men 
ARE created equal. 

“My friends, I could not, without launching off 
upon some new topic, which Avould detain you too 
long, continue to-night. I thank you for this most 
extensive audience that you have furnished me to¬ 
night. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty 
Avill burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer 
be a doubt that all men are created free and 

EQUAL.” 

Subsequently, at Springfield, Mr, Lincoln, 
pursuing the same topic, said:— 

“I\Iy declarations upon this subject of negro slavery 
maybe misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood. 
I haA^e said that I do not understand the Declaration 
to mean that all men were created equal in all re¬ 
spects. They are not our equal in color; but I sup¬ 
pose that it docs mean to declare that all men are 
equal in some respects; they are equal in their right 
to ‘ life, liberty, and the pxirsuit of happiness.' Cer¬ 
tainly the negro is not our equal in color,—perhaps 
not in many other respects: still, in the right to put 
into his month thebread that his oten handshave earned, 
he IS THE EQUAL OF EVERY OTHER MAN, white or 
black. In pointing out that more has been gWen you, 
you cannot be justified in taking aAvay the little 
Avhich has been girmn him. All I ask for the negro 
is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God 
gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.” 

In bis speech, in reply to Mr. Douglas, at 
Ottawa, in August, 1858, Mr. Lincoln again 
said :— 

“I have no purpose to introduce political and social 
equality betAveen the white and the black races. 
There is a physical difference betAA^een the two, Avhich, 
in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their 
living together upon the footing of perfect equality ; 
and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there 
must be a difference, I, as Avell as Judge Douglas, am 
in favor of the race to which I belong having the 
superior position. I Imve never said any thing to 
the contrary; but I hold that, notAvithstanding all 
this, there is no reason in the Avorld AA-hy the negro 
is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in 
the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that 
HE is as much ENTITLED TO THESE AS THE AVHITE 
MAN. I agree Avith, Judge Douglas he is not my 
equal in many respects—certainly not in color, per¬ 
haps not in moral or intellectual endoAvment. But in 
the right to eat the bread, without the leave of any¬ 
body else, Avhich his OAvn hand earns, he is my equal, 
and the eqtial of Judge Douglas, and the eaual of erei-y 
living man.” 

Divested of all speciousness, these declara- 







9 


tions of Mr. Lincoln not only deny that there 
can be any property in a slave, but make the 
negro the equal of the white man. For if it 
be true, as Mr. Lincoln contends, that the 
negro is equally entitled with the white man to 
liberty, it follows that lie is entitled to, and 
should have, all the political privileges which 
the Avhite man enjoys. There is no escape from 
that conclusion, if Mr. Lincoln’s dogma be 
correct. 

Henky Clay’s Understanding of the De¬ 
claration OF Independence. 

At Richmond, Indiana, on the 1st of October, 
1842, Mr. Clay made a speech on slavery, in 
reply to a petition presented to him by a Mr. 
Mendenhall, asking him to liberate his slaves. 
The following extract relates to the Declaration 
of Independence and its bearing on slavery:— 

The Declaration, whatever may be the extent of 
its import, was made by the delegations of the thir¬ 
teen States. In most of them slavery existed, and 
had long existed, and was established by law. It was 
introduced and forced upon the colonies by the para¬ 
mount law of England. Do you believe that, in 
making that Declaration, the States that concurred 
in it intended that it should be tortured into a vir¬ 
tual emancipation of all the slaves icifhin their re¬ 
spective limits ? Would Virginia and the other 
Southern States have ever united in a declaration 
which was to he interpreted into an abolition of slavery 
among them ? Did any one of the thirteen States 
entertain such a design or expectation ? To impute 
such a secret purpose would be to charge a political 
fraud upon the noblest band of patriots that ever 
assembled in council; a fraud upon the confexleracy 
of the Ilevolution; a fraud upon the union of those 
States whose Constitution not only recognised the 
laws of slavery but permitted the importation of 
slaves from Africa until 1808. And I am bold to 
saj' that if the doctrines of ultra political abolition¬ 
ists had been seriously promulgated at the epoch of 
our Revolution, our glorious independence would-never 
have been achieved,—never ! never !” — Mallory’s Life 
and Speeches of Clay, vol. ii. p. 597. 

Mr. Lincoln’s Views on Slavery tend to 
its Abolition. 

We acquit Mr. Lincoln of any present wish 
or intention to interfere directly with slavery 
in the States. His principles carried to their 
legitimate conclusion, however, will finally en¬ 
courage attempts at interference with slave 
property in the Southern States, similar to that 
of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, in Virginia. 
He denies that there can be property in man, 
and considers slavery a great moral wrong. If 
that be so, then any degree of violence is justi¬ 
fiable w'hich may be necessary to restore the 
negro to the liberty Avhich Mr. Lincoln claims 
that he is “as much entitled to as the white 
man.” It is this theory instilled into the minds 
of the ignorant and fanatical which excites not 
unfrequently riot and bloodshed when a fugi¬ 
tive slave is claimed by his owner in a free 
State. Mr. Lincoln, with great apparent can¬ 
dor, is one of the most dangerous teachers of 
the day. His theory of “irrepressible^con- 
rtict” between the free and the slave States, I 
absurd as it is, is powerful for mischief. He i 
may say that the Richmond (Va.) Enquirer, ' 


and not he, originated the theory. That mat¬ 
ters not: it is his by adoption, and he, in com¬ 
mon with jMr. Seward and his less distinguished 
supporters, will be responsible for whatever of 
mischief it has produced or may produce here¬ 
after. Mr. Lincoln stated this startling theory 
in his speech at Springfield, on the 17th of 
June, 1858, as follows:— 

We are now far into the fifth year since a policy 
was initiated with the avowed object and confident 
promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. 
Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has 
not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In 
my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have 
been reached and passed. ‘A. house divided against 
itself cannot stand.’ I believe this Government cannot 
endure permanently half slave (ind half free. Ido 
not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect 
the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. 
Either the opipioncnts of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall 
rest in the belief that it is in the course of xdtimate 
extinction, or its advocates ivill qmsh it forward till 
it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as 
well as new. North as well as South.” 

A few weeks after, Mr. Lincoln, in a speech 
at Chicago, commented on the passage which 
we have cited from his Springfield speech, as 
follows:— 

“He [Mr, Douglas] says that I am in favor of 
making war by the North upon the South for the ex¬ 
tinction of slavery; that I am also in favor of in¬ 
viting (as he expresses it) the South to war upon 
the North for the purpose of nationalizing slavery. 
Now, it is singular enough, if you will carefully read 
that passage over, that I did not say that I was in 
favor of any thing in it. I only said what I expected 
would take place. I made a prediction only: it may 
have been a foolish one, perhaps. I did not even say 
that I desired that slavery should be put in course of 
ultimate extinction. I no say so now, however: so 
there need be no longer any dijfficulty about that. It 
may be written down in the great speech.” 

He told his hearers in the same speech that 
he hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist. 
This was his language:— 

“/ have always hated slavery, I think, as much as 
any Abolitionist —I have been an Old-Line Whig— I 
have always hated it; but I have always been quiet 
about it until this new era of the introduction of the 
Nebraska bill began. I always believed that every¬ 
body was against it, and that it was in course 

OF ULTIMATE EXTINCTION.” 

And in a letter to the Republicans of Boston, 
under date of 7\.pril 18, 1859, Mr. Lincoln 
thus denies the right of property in a slave:— 

“The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one 
man to be absolutely nothing when in conflict with 
another man’s right of property. Republicans, on 
the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar, but, 
in case' of conflict, the (negro) man before the 

DOLLAR. 

“This is a world of compensationsj and he who 
would be no slave must consent to have no slave. 
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for 
themselves, and, under A just God, cannot long 
retain it.” 




10 


At Columbus, Ohio, in September, 1859, Mr. 
Lincoln more fully elaborated his idea of “the 
ultimate extinction” of slavei’y than lie had 
elaborated it in the Illinois campaign of 1868. 
The following is an extract of his speech:— 

“In order to do so, I think we want and must have 
a national policy in regard to the institution of 
slavery, that jickuowledges and deals with that insti¬ 
tution as being lerong. Whoever desires the preven¬ 
tion of the spread of slaverj'^ and the nationalization 
of that institution yields all when he yields to any 
policy that either recognises slavery as being right or 
as being an indifferent thing. Jvofhing will make 
you successful but setting up a policy which shall 
treat the thing as being torong. l\'^hen I say this, I 
do not mean to say that this General Government is 
charged with the duty of redressing or preventing 
all the wrongs in the world ; but I do think that it is 
charged with preventing and redressing all wrongs 
which are wrongs to itself. This Government is ex¬ 
pressly charged with the duty of providing for the 
general welfare. We believe that the spreading out 
and perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs 
the general welfare. We believe—nay, we know—that 
that is the only thing that has ever threatened the 
perpetuity of the Union itself. The only thing 
which has ever menaced the destruction of the Go¬ 
vernment under which we live is this very thing. 
To repress this thing, we think, is p>^'oviding for the 
general welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ from 
us. We need not make our argument for them, but 
we, who think IT is WRONG in all its relations, or 
in some of them at least, must decide, as to our own 
actions and our own course, upon our own judg¬ 
ment.” 

Now, if slavery be wrong in itself, “wrong in 
all its relations,” as Mr. Lincoln teaches, upon 
what principle can he regard, or will his party 
regard, the compromises of the Constitution 
with respect to the institution? Why should 
the slave States be unmolested if slavery be 

wrong in all its relations'll And yet, with 
such doctrines uppermost in his favor, Mr. 
Lincoln claims to be an “Old-Line Whig” 
and to follow in the footsteps of Henry Clay ! 
How different were the views of that great 
statesman! 

Henry Clay’s View of the alleged Irre¬ 
pressible Conflict. 

Mr. Clay spoke as follows, in the Senate, in 
February, 1838:— 

“ The slaves are here; and here they must remain, 
in some condition. What is best to be done for their 
happiness and our own ? In the slave States, the 
altern.ative is the ichite man must govern the black, 
or the black will govern the white. * This is our 
true ground of defence for the continued exist¬ 
ence of slavery in our country. It is that which our 
Revolutionary ancestors assumed. It is that which, 
in my opinion, forms our justification in the eyes of 
all Christendom.” — Append. Cong. Globe, vol. vi. p. 
387. 

In the same debate, Mr. Clay said, further:— 

“ But if I had been there then, or were now a citi¬ 
zen of any of the planting States,—the Southern or 
Southwestern States— I should have opposed, and 
would continue to oppose, any scheme whatever of 
emaneijiation, gradual or immediate, because of the 
danger of the ultimate ascendency of the black race, 
or of a civil contest which might terminate in the 


extinction of one race or the other.”— Append. Cong. 
Globe, p. 358. 

And in reply to Mr. Calhoun, whose reso¬ 
lutions on slavery were under discussion, iu 
January, 1838, Mr. Clay said:— 

“Why, sir, what is there to justify alarm in the 
mere fact of receiving a petition ? Action, Congres¬ 
sional ACTION, ALONE, CAN JUSTIFY ALARM. The 
Senator thinks my resolutions make a concession. 
Of what? The right to abolish slavery in the States? 
No. They demand the instantaneous rejection of all 
such petitions, as being palpably beyond the powers 
of Congress, and therefore not even debatable. The 
right to abolish slavery in the District? No. The 
strongest grounds—stronger than the Senator’s own 
resolutions—are assumed against it. The right to 
abolish it in the Territory of Florida f No. All 
considerations against it are arrayed in forcible lan¬ 
guage. The right to prohibit the sale and removal 
of slave from State to State? No. The constitu¬ 
tional power of Congress to do that is denied. And 
it is remarkable that, while my resolutions deny that 
power, his are altogether silent about it.”— Append. 
Cong. Globe, vol. vi. p. 59. 

As to property in slaves, Mr. Clay said, 
also:— 

“I know there is a visionary dogma which holds 
that negro slaves cannot’be the subject of pro2)erty. 

I shall not dwell long with this speculative abstrac¬ 
tion. That is property which the law recognises to 
he property. Two hundred years of legislation have 
sanctioned axi6. sanctified negro sl-:ves as property .”— 
Append. Cong. Globe, vol. vi. ji. 357. 

Pages could be filled with extracts of Henry 
Clay’s speeches and letters condemnatory of 
Mr, Lincoln’s doctriues. There cannot be 
found, indeed, any vote, resolution, speech, or 
opinion of Mr, Clay in harmony with Mr. Lin¬ 
coln’s expressed opinions on the question of 
slavery. Mr. Lincoln leads a sectional party 
and appeals to one section only for support, 
Henry Clay was a national man, and hated 
every thing that looked to or maintained sec¬ 
tionalism. Here is what he said in 1850, after 
the passage of the Compromise Measures, when 
Northern Whigs—Mr. Lincoln heartily uniting 
with them—evinced a disposition to repudiate 
the adjustment. Let all “Old-Line Whigs” 
and conservative men ponder his words well:— 

“ But if it (the Whig party) is to be merged into 
a contemptible Abolition party, and if Abolitionism 
is to be engrafted upon the Whig creed, from that 
moment I denounce the party and cease to be a 
Whig. I go yet a step further: If I am alive, I will 
give my humble support to that man for the Presi¬ 
dency who, to ichatever party he may belong, is not 
CONTAMINATED by fanaticism, rather than to one who, 
crying out all the time that he is a Whig, MAINTAINS 
DOCTRINES UTTERLY SUBVERSIVE OF THE CONSTITU¬ 
TION AND OF THE UnION.” 

The Supporters of Mr. Lincoln Hostile to 
THE Constitution. 

In our review of Mr, Lincoln’s position with 
respect to the Fugitive Slave act, we took oc¬ 
casion to collate the denunciations, which a 
few of his prominent supporters have hurled 
against that law. The great mass of his sup¬ 
porters openly proclaim hostility to the law and 





11 


to the Constitution also. Obstructions are 
thrown in the way of the execution of the law, 
rescues are made, and resistance openly coun¬ 
selled. And yet the Repixblicans call theirs a 
National Party, and profess reverence for the 
Constitution ! 

Sixty-eight Republican members of Con¬ 
gress gave their endorsement — which only 
some seven or eight have repudiated—to one 
of the most atrocious . books ever published,! 
Helper’s “Impending Crisis of Slavery.” Here 
are some of the sentiments which it inculcates, 
—sei^timents entertained by a vast number of 
the Republicans;— 

‘‘Wc enter our protest against it, and deem it our 
duty to use our most strenuous eCForts to overturn and 
abolish it. We are not only in favor of keep¬ 

ing slavery out of the Territories, but, carrying our 
opposition to the institution a step farther, we here 
unhesitatingly declare in favor of its IMMEDIATE 
and UNCONDITIONAL ABOLITION IN EVERY 
STATE in the Confederacy where it now exists.”— 
Page 25 of The Crisis. 

“ The great revolutionary movement which was 
set on foot in Charlotte, Mecklenburg county, Noi'th 
Carolina, on the 20th day of May, 1775, has not yet 
been terminated, nor will it be until every slave in 
the United States is freed from the turanny of his 
master.” —Page 95 of The Crisis. * 

“ It seems that the total number of actual slave¬ 
owners, including their entire crew of cringing lick¬ 
spittles, against whom we have to contend, is but 
347,525. Against this army for the defence and pro¬ 
pagation of slavery, we think it will be an easy mat¬ 
ter—independent of the negroes, who in nine cases 
out of ten would be delighted with an opportunity 
of CUTTING THEIR MASTERS* THROATS, and without 
accepting a single reemit from the free States, Eng¬ 
land, France, or (Germany—to muster one three 
times as large, for its wtter extinction. We hope the 
matter in dispute may be adjusted without arraying 
these armies against each other in hostile attitude. 
V iif * But we are wedbed to one purpose, from 

WHICH NO EARTHUY POWER CAN DIVORCE US. WE 

ARB DETERMINED TO ABOLISH SLAVERY 
AT ALL HAZARDS.*’—Page 149. 

“At once let the good and true men of this country, 
the patriot sons of the patriot fathers, determine 
that the sun which rises to celebrate the centennial 
anniversary of our national independence shall not 
set on the head of any slave within the limits of this 
republic.”—Page 178. 

We have the authority of Mr. Giddings, of 
Ohio, that every sentence of “Helper’s Book” 
—the most odious portions of which we pur¬ 
posely avoid to cite—finds “a response in the 
hearts of all true Republicans.” Mr. Giddings 
wrote the following letter to the editor of the 
Ashtabula (Ohio) Sentinel when the name of 
John Sherman was withdrawn as the Repub¬ 
lican candidate for Speaker of the House of 
Representatives :— 

“Washington City, Feb. 5, 1860. 

“ To the Editor of the Ashtabula Sentinel:—Our 
friends at home should be slow to censure their re¬ 
presentatives for deserting Mr. Sherman. They 

felt the humiliation of discarding a candidate because 
he had endorsed the doctrines of Helper’s book, 
EVERY SENTENCE of WHICH FINDS A RE¬ 
SPONSE IN THE HEARTS OF ALL TRUE RE¬ 
PUBLICANS. * * J. R. Giddings.” 


So it is the country over. Every sympathizer 
with “Old John Brown,” every violator of the 
Fugitive Slave law, every contemner of the Con¬ 
stitution, such as Sumner and Wendell Phil¬ 
lips and the notorious Redpath, is heartily 
for Mr. Lincoln’s election. To these incen¬ 
diaries the conservative men of the country of 
all parties must make a bold, defiant, and suc¬ 
cessful opposition. Sectionalism, North and 
South, must be put down. “ The Federal Union 
must be preserved. The Constitution must be 
maintained inviolate in all its parts.” 

Mr. Lincoln and the Mexican War. 

Mr. Lincoln was not a member of the House 
of Representatives when war was declared 
against Mexico. He took his seat in December, 
1847, and, consequently, had no opportunity 
to vote but in a single instance, on a bill to 
provide supplies for the army. The bill re¬ 
ferred to was to “ raise for a limited time an ad¬ 
ditional military force,” which was rendered ne¬ 
cessary by the expiration of the term of service 
of several thousand volunteers. The bill, 
which was known as the “ Ten Regiment bill,” 
passed the Senate on the 18th of March, 1848, 
and, on the 25th, Mr. Boyd, of Kentucky, of 
the Committee on Military Affairs, with a view 
to speedy action by the House of Represent¬ 
atives, moved its reference to that Committee, 
with instructions to report immediately. The 
motion was voted down by yeas 87, nays 87,— 
Mr. Lincoln voting in the negative. The 
bill came up in regular order on the 4th day of 
May following,—the necessity for its passage 
having increased meanwhile fourfold,—and 
Mr. Boyd moved that it be referred to the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
the Union. That motion was lost also, —yeas 
74, nays 79. Mr. Lincoln again voted in the 
negative. Fortunately, the treaty of peace 
which Avas communicated to Congress by the 
President on the 6th day of July, 1848, ren¬ 
dered the consideration of the bill, Avhich was 
referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, 
unnecessary afterwards. But, if hostilities ha.d 
continued, our army in Mexico would have 
been seriously crippled in consequence of the 
refusal of Congress to grant the additional 
military force promptly.— Congressional Globe, 
vol. xviii. pp. 637, 725, 901. 

On the 3d of January, 1848, Mr. Houston, 
of Delaware, introduced in the House of Re¬ 
presentatives a joint resolution of thanks to 
Major-General Zachary Taylor, which Mr. 
ScHENCK, of Ohio, moved to refer to the Com¬ 
mittee on Military Affairs. 

IMr. Henley, of Indiana, moved to amend 
by adding instructions to the committee to add 
to the resolutions the words, '■'■engaged as they 
were in defending the rights and honor of the na¬ 
tion.” 

Whereupon, Mr. George Ashmun, of Massa¬ 
chusetts, moved to amend the amendment of 
Mr. Henley by adding the words, “m a war 
unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the 
President of the United States.” 

The amendment of Mr. Ashmun was agreed 




12 


to, yea^ 85, nays 81. Mr. Lincoln voted in the 
aflirmative.— Cony. Globe, vol. xviii. p. 95. 

On the 14th of February ensuing, Mr. James 
Thompson, of Pennsylvania, with a view to set 
aside the action of the House on the 3d of 
January, otfered the following resolution :— 

“ Jieaolvcd, That the words of the amendment 
ofi'ered and adopted by the House to the resolution 
of thanks to Major-General Taylor on the 3d of 
January, 1848, eontaining the words Ohat the war 
[namely with Mexico] was unnecessarily and uncon¬ 
stitutionally begun by the President,’ is untrue in 
fact, and calculated to prevent a peace with Mexico 
on the basis of indemnity, and should be rescinded.” 

The resolution was laid on the table,—Mr. 
Lincoln voting in the affirmative,— yeas 105, 
nays 94. — Cony. Globe, vol. xviii. pp.. 343, 344. 

On the 17th of January, 1848, Mr. Chase, of 
Tennessee, offered the following resolution:— 

‘^Resolved, That it is inexpedient to order our 
troo^is to retreat from the 2 ^o 8 itions which they have 
so gallantly won in Mexico, for the purpose of fall¬ 
ing back on a defensive line.” 

The vote on the motion to lay the resolution 
on the table was agreed to, yeas 90, nays 89,— 
Mr. Lincoln voting in the affirmative.— (fony. 
Globe, vol. xviii. p. 179. 

On the 20th day of December, 1847, Mr. 
Lincoln’s colleague, Mr. William A. Kicii- 
ARDSON, offered the following resolutions with 
respect to the war-policy of the country:— 

Resolved, That the existing war with Mexico was 
just and necessary on our part, and has been prose¬ 
cuted with the sole purpose of vindicating our na¬ 
tional rights and honor and of securing an honor¬ 
able peace. 

Resolved, That the rejection of our repeated over¬ 
tures of peace leaves the Government no alternative 
but the most vigorous prosecution of the war, in such 
manner, consistent with the laws of nations, as will 
make the enemy feel all its calamities and burdens, 
until Mexico shall agree to a just and honorable 
peace, providing satisfactory indemnity in money or 
territory for past injuries, including the expense of 
the war. 

‘^Resolved, That the amount of the indemnity 
must uecessaril 3 r depend upon the obstinacy of the 
enemy and the duration of the war.”— Cony. Globe, 
vol. xvii. p. 59. 

Mr. Lincoln would have voted against the 
resolutions, had they come to a vote, for rea¬ 
sons which he stated in the House on the 12th 
day of January, 1848, and which the following 
extract of his speech will explain :— 

“But, in addition to this, one of his colleagues 
(Mr. Richardson) came into the House with a reso¬ 
lution in terms expressly endorsing the justness of 
the President's conduct in the beginning of the war. 
So that ho found himself here, if he was inclined 
TO GIVE THE President his supplies, and say 
nothing about the original justice of the war,—if he 
was inclined to go with him, to look ahead, and not 
back, in a position that ho could not do so. He 
should feel compelled to rote on this resolution in 
the negative.”— Cony. Globe, vol. xviii. p. 154. 

In the course of his remarks, he said, speak¬ 
ing of President Polk, The blood of this war, 
like the blood of Abel, teas cry in y from the yround 
ayainst him. 

On the 21st of February, 1848, Mr. Chase, 


I of Tennessee, asked leave to offer a joint reso¬ 
lution of thanks to Generals Taviogs, Worth, 
Pillow, Shields, Patterson, Quitman, 
Pierce, Smith, and Cadavallader, and to the 
officers and soldiers under their command, for 
their gallant services in the Mexican AVar, and 
also ordering gold medals to be struck, Avith 
suitable devices, to be presented one to each 
of the commanding generals named in the reso¬ 
lutions. On the motion to suspend the rules, 
the vote was, yeas 110, nays 54. Mr. Lincoln 
voted in the negative.— Cony. Globe, vol. xviii. 
p. 381.* 

Such is Mr. Lincoln’s record on the Mexi¬ 
can AVar, and kindred questions, as a member 
of Congress. AVe give it without comment, 
and leave it to the judgment of the country. 

Mr. Lincoln’s Desertion of Henry Clay 
IN 1848. 

Mr. Lincoln, in his campaign with Mr. 
Douglas, in 1858, in Illinois, boasted that he 
was the “ life-long friend of Henry Clay and 
on this ground those who faithfully shared the 
political fortunes of Kentucky’s great Chief 
are appealed to in his support for the Presi¬ 
dency. This claim of Mr. Lincoln and his 
immediate fiends is summarily disposed of in 
the folloAving extract of a speech delivered by 
Gen. G. AY. Singleton, an “Old-Line AA'hig,” 
at Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1858;— 

“ Mr. Lincoln was the first man in Illinois Avho pro¬ 
posed to an organized body of AYbigs to abandon 
Henry Clay and the principles of the AVhig party. 
In or about June, 1847, the Constitutional Conven¬ 
tion being in session, the AVhig members of said 
convention were privately summoned to appear at 
the house of Ninian AV. Edwards, in the city of 
Springfield. The meeting being organized, Mr. 
Lincoln explained its object to be the selection of 
some other man than Henry Clay as the standard- 
bearer of the AVhig party in the coming Presidential 
contest. The name of Gen. Tajdor was proposed 
by Mr. Lincoln, and the necessity of immediate 
action urged, on the ground that if the AAffiigs did 
not take Taylor for their candidate the Demo¬ 
crats would; that the AA^hig party had fought long 
enough for principle, and should change its motto to 
success. Resolutions being adopted by this meeting 
in accordance with the views expressed by Mr. Lin¬ 
coln, Charles H. Constable and myself immediately 
left the house. 

“AVhen the Whig conA’-ention assembled in Phila¬ 
delphia in 1848, Abraham Lincoln united in all the 
schemes against Henry Clay, and contributed there 
and elseAvhere every thing in his poAver to rob that 
great and good man of the honors he had so richly 
earned by a long life of devotion to his country and 
to his party. 

“ Mr. Lincoln CA’^en went so far as to try to prevent 
me from taking a seat in the Philadelphia conA^en- 
tion, and urged me to surrender my seat to Dr. 
Zabriskie,—Zabriskie then being a citizen of Kew 
Jersey, and not of Illinois,—because Zabriskie was 
for Taylor, and I Avas for Henry Clay, for the Presi¬ 
dency. 

“As a member of Congress, Mr. Lincoln was 


* The main question was ordered on Mr. Cu.\se’s resolu¬ 
tions. and Avas about to bo put, when further proceedings 
were interrupted, and the House adjourned, in cons 'qiience 
of the illness of lion. John Quincy Adams, avIio sank in bis 
seat at the time, apparently in the agonies of death. 





13 


actively engaged, during the spring of 1848, in con¬ 
cocting schemes for the defeat and overthrow of 
Henry Clay, and finally rejoiced when he beheld 
the mangled remains of that great patriot and 
statesman inhumanly butchered by those claiming 
to be his friends. 

“ After the election of Gen, Tayloi’, he cast his 
eyes upon the Land-Office at Washington, soon to 
be disposed of by the President. The Whig party 
of Illinois, claiming that appointment, recommended 
Cjn-us Edwards, of Madison county, who was regarded 
by all in the party, and out of it, with the highest 
veneration as a gentleman, a scholar, and a statesman. 

“ The recommendation of Cyrus Edwards was 
forwarded to Mr. Lincoln, then a member of Con¬ 
gress, who, instead of laying it before the President, 
kept it in his pocket, and pretended that he (Lincoln) 
was the only man that could keep Justin Butterfield 
from receiving the appointment. ' When the Whig 
party learned the game Lincoln had played on their 
old and true friend, Mr. Edwards, instead of helping 
him to defeat Butterfield, they, in the town of Spring- 
field, administered to Lincoln a most severe rebuke 
by going for Butterfield instead of for Lincoln, 
From that time until within a year or two past Mr. 
Lincoln has been compelled to remain in retire¬ 
ment.” 

The Homestead Bill,—“Land foe. the 
Landless.” 

Mr. Lincoln’s Kecord. 

The supporters of Mr, Lincoln build large 
hopes for his success in the present canvass for 
the Presidency, upon the fact that the Repub¬ 
licans in Congress sustained the Homestead 
bill. “Land for the landless” is the cry all 
along the Republican ranks,and thousands upon 
thousands of speeches and pamphlets with this 
title are scattered over the free States, and es¬ 
pecially wherever we have a foreign-born popu¬ 
lation. 

Now, the inquiry, in view of this clamor of 
his friends, arises,—“What did Mr. Lincoln 
ever do to further the Homestead policy ?—what 
to give ‘land to the landless’?” He was in 
Congress, as a member of the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives, for two years, and never made an 
effort to aid “the landless,”—never opened his 
lips to “ secure homes for actual settlers and 
cultivators.” Other men— Williamson R. W, 
Cobb, of Alabama, William Sawyer, of Ohio, 
Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, John A. McCler- 
NAND and Robert Smith, of Illinois, John A. 
Slingerland and Horace Geeeley, of New 
York, and, above all, Andrew Johnson, of Ten¬ 
nessee, the father of the Homestead system—did 
endeavor either to reduce the price of the public 
lands and discourage speculation in them, or 
to “appropriate them in limited quantities to 
actual settlers;” Abraham Lincoln never. 
A pioneer in the West, who had witnessed the 
evils and injustice of our land-system in its en¬ 
couragement of land-jobbers and speculators, 
and the struggles of actual settlers to secure 
homes for their families, Abraham Lincoln 
never made an effort to abate that system and 
remedy its evils. Where was he when Horace 
Greeley appealed in vain, on the 27th of 
February, 1848, in behalf of his measure to 
Becure “a home to every one who will claim it, 
without money and without price” ? ( Conff. Glol^, 
vol. XX. p. C24.) That was the time to prove 


his friendship for “the landless;” that was the 
occasion for Mr. Lincoln to recognise ‘‘the 
principle that a man is entitled to live some¬ 
where, although he has no money to buy land 
to live on.” Yet he, who now appeals to the 
actual settler and to “the landless” for support, 
while in Congress never countenanced them, 
by Word, vote, or otherwise. And Hannibal 
Hamlin, his associate on the ticket, has per¬ 
sistently opposed the Homestead policy, which 
the Republicans attempt to make their own. 
The Presidential candidate of the Republicans 
indifferent, if not actually inimical, to “the 
landless,” and the Vice-Presidential candidate 
actively hostile ! Such is the position of their 
candidates; and yet the Republican press and 
Republican speakers, with the constant cry of 
“land for the landless,” expect to secure favor 
and support for them from the settlers in the 
new States of the West. They reckon without 
their host. The people will not desert stead¬ 
fast friends to push on the political fortunes of 
Lincoln and Hamlln, —the one a passive and 
the other an active enemy of the Homestead 
policy. They will follow the standard of the 
man who has been ever true and faithful to that 
policy,— Stephen A. Douglas. 

Mr. Douglas and the Homestead Bill. 

A bill to grant lands to actual settlers and 
cultivators in limited quantities—in other words, 
a Homestead bill—was before the Senate, at the 
first session of the Thirty-Fifth Congress, in 
1858. It was postponed until the first Monday 
of January, 1859, on motion of Mr. Clingman, 
of North Carolina, whose object was to defeat 
it. The vote on postponement was taken on 
the 27th day of May, 1858, and was as follows:— 

“Yeas. —Messrs.Allen, Bigler, Brown, Clay, Cling¬ 
man, Crittenden, Davis, Dixon, Fessenden, Fitz¬ 
patrick, Foster, Green, HAMLIN, Hayne, Houston, 
Hunter, Iverson, Johnson of Arkansas, Johnson of 
Tennessee, Kennedy, Mallory, Mason, Pearce, Polk, 
Reid, Sebastian, Slidell, Thompson of Kentucky, 
Thompson of New Jersey, and Wright.—Total, 30. 

“Nays. —Messj's. Bell, Bright, Broderick, Chandler, 
DOUGLAS, Durkee, Fitch, Foot, Hale, Harlan, 
Jones, King, Pugh, Rice, Seward, Shields, Simmons, 
Stewart, Toombs, Trumbull, Wade, and Wilson.— 
Total, 22.” — Coii(j. Globe, vol. xlvi. part 3, p. 2420. 

Mr. Hamlin voted to postpone, or defeat the 
bill, for that session of Congress; while Mr. 
Douglas voted against postponement, and for 
action. 

At the next session of Congress the friends 
of the bill made several efforts to press its con¬ 
sideration ; but its lukewarm sxipporters united 
with its enemies and gave other bills precedence. 
Mr. Douglas uniformly voted to consider the 
Homestead before any other bill. Its friends 
endeavored, for the second or third time, to get 
action on the bill, on the 25th of February, 1859. 
The motion of Mr. Slidell, of Louisiana, tc 
set aside all prior orders of the Senate, and all 
other bills, and take up the bill for the acqui¬ 
sition of Cuba, prevailed, hoAvever, by the fol¬ 
lowing vote:— 

“ Yeas. —Messrs. Allen, Bayai'd, Bell, Benjamin, 
Bigler, Brown, Chestnut, Clay, Clingman, Davis, 
Fitch, Fitzpatrick, Green, Gwin, Hammond, Houston, 



14 


TIuntor, Iverson, Jones, LANE, Mallory, Mason, Polk, 
Pugh, Held, Rice. Sebastian, Shields, Slidell, Smith, 
Stuart, ToomVis, Ward, Wright, and Yulee.—35, 

“Nays. —Messrs. Broderick, Cameron, Chandler, 
Clark, Collanier, Dixon, Doolittle, DOUGLAS, Dur- 
kee, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Hale, HAMLIN, Har¬ 
lan, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, King, Pearce, 
Seward, Siuimons, Trumbull, AVadc, and Wilson.— 
24.”— Cong. Globe, 2d Session, Thirty-Fifth Congress, 
part 2, p. 1236. 

Ml’. Hamlin’s vote in the negative, in view 
of his Avell-known opposition to the Homestead 
policj’’, was a vote of hostility to Mr. Slidell’s 
thirty-million Cuba bill, and not a vote in favor 
of that policy. 

On the 10th day of May, 1860, the Senate 
had under consideration the bill of that body 
to grant a homestead to actual settlers and cul¬ 
tivators of the public lands. Mr. Douglas 
offered an amendment, the purpose of which 
was to extend the provisions of the bill to “all 
lands subject to private entry.” In support of 
his amendment, he said:— 

“ I am willing to adopt the general principle that 
the settler upon the public lands, whether he is now 
there or shall hereafter go there and make his home, 
shall take the land at the reduced price provided for 
in this bill; but I wish the general principle appli¬ 
cable to the future—running through all time to 
come—rather than a mere expedient as a bill of relief 
to the settlers now upon the lands. I am, therefore, 
going to vote against the amendment of the Senator 
from Minnesota. Itbeingan amendment to an amend¬ 
ment, it is not now in order to offer a further amend¬ 
ment to it; but when that is rejected, I shall move to 
amend the bill by striking out the words ’subject to 
priv.ate entry,’ and putting in the words ‘subject to 
pre-emption,’ so that it Avill then apply to all lands 
subject to pre-emption ; and I want it to apply to lands 
subjeetto pre-emption, whetherthey besosubjecthere- 
aftcr or have been heretofore, so that it shall be a gene¬ 
ral principle, a permanent policy looking to the future. 

“ Mr. COLLAMER.—If it is arranged in that 
manner, what will become of those wiio have gone 
on the lands in Minnesota, for example? AVill the 
Senator’s amendment reach those people, and enable 
them to take the land at a quarter’ of a dollar, as 
well as those wiio may go hereafter? 

“Mr. DOUGLAS.—Precisely. AVhat I desire is, 
that every man now on the public lands that have 
been surveyed, and that are liable to the provisions 
of this bill, and also all that have gone on to land 
not surveyed, may take it under this bill as soon as 
it becomes surveyed; and also that all persons who 
shall hereafter go on the land may take it under 
this bill so soon as it shall be surveyed. That is 
what I desire to see in the bill. 

“Mr. AVADE.—I believe that is right. Let us 
have a vote. I believe that the proposition of the 
Senator from Illinois is right, and I want a vote. 

“Mr. DOUGLAS.—I will stop right here if we 
can got a vote.” 

Again, in reply to Mr. Jeefekson Davis, of 
Mississippi, he said:— 

“Mr. DOUGLAS.—I have listened with interest 
and pleasure to the very clear exposition of the land- 
system, given by the Senator from Mississippi. It 
is true that this amendment to this bill will make a 
radical change in that system. I do not wish to 
disguise from any Senator, nor from the country, the 
full extent of that change. The change is simply 
this : as the land-system now stands, the speculator 
and the actual settler are on terms of entire equality, 


taking the land at $1.25 an acre; but, according to 
the proposed change, the speculator will be required 
to pay $1.25 an acre, and the settler will only pay 
twenty-five cents an acre. The legal effect will be, to 
make one dollar an acre difference between the man 
who buys for specxdation without settlement, and the 
man who settles upon the land and makes it his home ; 
and that is my object in the amendment. 

“Mr. AVADE.—All right, Mr. President: let us 
have a vote.”— Gong. Globe, 1st Session, Thirty-Sixth 
Congress, pp. 2038, 2039, 2040. 

And, further, in reply to Mr. Pugh, of Ohio, 
Mr. Douglas said :— 

“ The effect of this amendment is that there shall be 
one dollar an acre difference between the sjjeculator and 
the settler ; that the actual settler may take his laud 
at twenty-five cents, and that the speculator shall pay 
$1.25. But the "Senator from Ohio says, the specu¬ 
lator will send in advance his agent to go and get 
a claim under the homestead. Sir, do you think 
the speculator will send his agents to go and get a 
claim under the homestead ? Sir, do you think that, 
in order to reduce a tract of land from $1.25 an acre 
to twenty-five cents, the speculator will send his 
agent there to hold the land five years, and pay five 
years’ salary in order to save one hundred dollars? 
No, sir. You protect the settler against the specu¬ 
lator, by requiring five years’ residence under this 
bill, and cultivation upon the land. The speculator 
cannot bear the expense of keeping a settler for five 
years in order to reduce the price. It would cost 
him three times as much as he would gain by it. 
This bill, therefore, furnishes the only efficient pre¬ 
ventive against this system of fraud and speculation 
that I have seen devised. 

“I am well aware that the effect of this bill, with 
my amendment, will be to make the public lands cease 
to be a large source of revenue. I do not believe the 
country will suffer by withdrawing that source of 
revenue; and for this reason: any one w’ho will trace 
the reports of the sales of the public lands for the 
last thirty years will find that whenever the country 
was prosperous, whenever the imports ivere great, 
whenever money was plenty, and you had a surplus 
revenue in the treasurj’^ that you did not know what 
to do Avith, your land-sales ran up to ten, tAvelve, 
tAventy, or twenty-four millions of dollars a year; 
but the moment a revulsion came, and money be¬ 
came scarce and your imports began to fall off, the 
land-sales stojiiied; you could scarcely get a dollar 
into the treasury during the very years you needed 
it most. This source of reAmnue failed you Avhen 
you Avanted it, and poured in upon you when you 
did not Avant it and did not know Avhat to do Avith 
it. It creates a surplus w’hen the surplus becomes a 
curse to you, and fails you Avhen jmu need it to supply 
the deficiency in the treasury. This A'ery system 
of public land-sales is one of the causes of pecuniary 
rcAmlsions in this country; and it will benefit the 
country, benefit the treasury, benefit the commercial 
community, and the moneyed affairs of the entire 
Union, to have this system cut off. It will remain 
partially under the bill Avhere lands are entered for 
speculation, but it will be cut off in regard to the 
actual settler. He pays only twenty-five cents an 
acre, Avhich is about the cost of the administration 
of the land-system. 

“Mr. MASON.—I wish to ask the Senator from 
Illinois wdiether the effect of this amendment Avill 
not be to enable the pre-emptors Avho noAv are such 
to take their pre-emption lands at a quarter of a 
dollar an acre? 

“ Mr. DOUGLAS.— Unquestionably.”— Congress. 
Globe, 1st Sess. Thirty-Sixth Cong. pp. 2040, 2041. 

The amendment of Mr. Douglas, the design 






of wliicli was to protect the actual settler 
against the speculator iu lands, and cheapen 
lauds to the pre-emption claimant, was rejected 
by the following vote:— 

“ Yeas. —Messrs. Anthony, Bingham, Cameron, 
Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Dixon, Doolittle, DOUG- 
L.^S, Durkee, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, HAMLIN, 
Harlan, King, Rice, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten 
Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, and Wilson.—26. 

AV/ys.—Messrs. Bayard, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, 
Brown, Chesnut, Clay, Clingman, Davis. Fitzpatrick, 
Green, Gwin, Hammond, Hemphill, Hunter, Iverson, 
Johnson of Arkansas, Johnson of Tennessee, Lane, 
Latham, Mason, Nicholson, Pearce, Polk, Powell, 
Pugh, Sebastian, Slidell, Toombs, Wigfall, and Yulee. 
—31.”— Cony. Globe, 1st Session, Thirty-Sixth Con¬ 
gress, p. 2011. 

It was subsequently moved to amend the Se¬ 
nate’s bill by substituting for it the bill of the 
House of Representatives, which was more 
liberal in its provisions. The amendment was 
lost by the following vote :— 

^‘Ayes. —Messrs. Anthony, Bingham, Cameron, 
Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Dixon, Doolittle, DOUG¬ 
LAS, Durkee, Foster, Grimes, Hale, HAMLIN, 
Harlan, King, Rice, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten 
Eyck, Trumbull, Vfade, Wilkinson, and Wilson.—25. 

“Nays. —Messrs. Bayard, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, 
Brown, Chestnut, Clay, Clingman, Davis, Fitzpatrick, 
Green, Gwin, Hammond, Hemphill, Hunter, John¬ 
son of Arkansas, Johnson of Tennessee, LANE, 
Latham, Mason, Nicholson, Pearce, Polk, Powell, 
Pugh, Slidell,Wigfall, and Yulee.—28.”— Cony. Globe, 
1st Session, Thirty-Sixth Congress, 3139. 

Failing to agree upon a bill satisfactory to 
either, the Senate and House, through the 
action of Committees of Conference, finally 
passed a compromise bill, which provides sub¬ 
stantially as follows :— 

^‘First, All lands now subject to private entry are 
to be open for homesteads at twenty-five cents per 
acre. 

. ‘^Second, One-half of the surveyed public lands 
which have not been offered for public sale, and are 


now only open to pre-emption, are, by the bill, jpen 
for homesteads at twenty-five cents per acre. 

“Third, Pre-emptors now on public lands are, two 
years from and after the passage of this act, to pay 
for their claim, and at the rate of sixty-two and a 
half cents per acre.” 

Although not as liberal as the friends of the 
Homestead policy wished, the bill was a great 
step toAvards the triumph of the settler over r.he 
speculator. Mr. Douglas, in common Avith all 
who had supported the policy of donating lauds 
to actual settlers and cultivators, therefore 
voted for the bill. The vote on its passage was 
as folloAvs:— 

“Ayes. —Messrs. Anthony, Bigler,Bingham,Bright, 
Brown, Cameron, Chandler, Chestnut, Clark, Clay, 
Collamer, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, DOUGLAS, Dur¬ 
kee, Fitzpatrick, Foster, Green, Grimes, Gwin, Hale, 
Hammond, Harlan, Hemphill, Johnson of Arkansas, 
Johnson of Tennessee, King, Lane, Latham, Nichol¬ 
son, Polk, Rice, Sebastian, Seward, Slidell, Sumner, 
Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, Wilson, and 
Yulee.—43. 

“Nays. —Messrs. Bragg, Clingman, HAMLIN, 
Hunter, Mason, Pearce, Powell, and Toombs.—8.”— 
Cony. Globe, 1st Session, Thirty-Sixth Congress, p. 
3159. 

Thus, Mr. Hamlin redeemed by his vote against 
the Homestead bill his declaration during the de¬ 
bate on the general policy,—“ 1 am against the 
bill, and am going to vote against it. I am 
going to leave a record consistent with my 
judgment. I think the bill is avrong.” 

This condensed history of the measure in 
Congress shoAvs that Stephen A. Douglas has 
persistently supported the Homestead policy, 
that Abraham Lincoln never aided it in any 
manner whatever, and that Hannibal Hamlin 
has persistently opposed it. Those whose in¬ 
terests are involved in the success of that_policy 
will not be slow to choose between Stephen A. 
Douglas on the one side and Abraham Lin¬ 
coln on the other, and choose wisely. 

Washington, August, 1860. 


APPENDIX. 


THE FEDEEAL UNION—IT MUST AND SHALL BE PRESEEVED.— Andrew Jackson 


EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH OF STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS AT PETERS¬ 
BURG, VA., AUGUST 31, 1860. 


The Election op Lincoln no Cause for Disso¬ 
lution. 

I was asked the other day, at Norfolk, by an 
elector on the Breckinridge Secession Ticket, whether, 
in the event Mr. Lincoln was elected President, I 
thought it would be good cause for dissolving this 
Union. I answered no. [Immense applause.] The 
election of no man according to the forms of the 
Constitution is cause of disunion. [Cheers.] I would 
regret the election of Lincoln, or any other Aboli¬ 
tionist or Black Republican, as a great public ca¬ 
lamity, an event greatly to be deplored, as bringing 


an awful responsibility upon those who produced 
such a result; but it is not cause of disunion. 
[Cheers.] Such a calamity, I trust in God, is not 
going to be inflicted on this country; and I am 
satisfied that it will not be this time. [Immense ap¬ 
plause.] But ifj unhappily, it shall occur, it will be 
the work of the Secessionists who bolted at Baltimore. 
[Thunders of applause.] There is not a man of 
brains in all America who does not know that if they 
had stayed in the Convention and had abided the 
result, supported the platform of the party accord¬ 
ing to the usages of the party and as adopted on 
previous occasions, and then supported the nomi- 










16 









nee, that Lincoln had not a show of carrying but 
two States. [Cheers.] The only chance on earth 
Jiincoln has is by dividing the Democratic party and 
letting him succeed by a minority vote in the different 
States. Who produced such a state of things ? 
Those who seceded when they could not control the 
maj'irity. [Cries of “ True,” and applause.] There 
is no man reckless enough of his own character for 
honesty to preteml that the Secession candidate can 
possibly carry a Northern State. Then what is the 
object of running a ticket, unless it is to divide the 
Democratic party and allow the Republican paj-ty 
to carry the States by a minority vote ? Every 
Northern State, e.xccpt Vermont and Massachusetts, 
which Mr. Lincoln carries, he will be indebted to 
Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Breckinridge for. The 
Black Republicans have no hope except through the 
cflbrts of the office-holders and the Secessionists. 
Why did they secede, except upon the supposition 
that the election of Lincoln on the Black Republican 
platform was preferable to the election of the choice 
of the party on the old platform of the party ? 
[Cheers.] They seceded to prevent the regular 
nominee from being elected, knowing that the result 
must be, if they succeeded in accomplishing their 
object, the election of Mr. Lincoln. Preferring Mr. 
Lincoln to the regular nominee, they now have the 
modesty to inquire of me whether or not I will help 
them dissolve the Union after Lincoln is elected. 
[Laughter.] I tell them, Never on earth! [Cries of 

Good,” and great applause.] Whomever the people 
elect according to the forms of the Constitution must 
be inaugurated. [Cheers.] After he has been inau¬ 
gurated he must obey the Constitution of the coun¬ 
try ; and if after his inauguration and while he has 
possession of the Government he violates the Con¬ 
stitution and makes Avar upon any section of this 
country, we Avill hang him higher than llaman! 
[Unbounded enthusiasm.] 

The Union must be Preserved. 

I hold there is no grieA'ance in this country, and 
can be none, for which the Constitution and laivs will 


not furnish a remedy inside of the Union. [Cheers.,, 
There is no evil, and can be none, for which disunion 
is a legitimate remedy. [Cheers.] Then let all 
Union-loving men, all conservative men, all Consti¬ 
tution-abiding men, rally together and put down 
Northern abolitionism and Southei'ii secession. [Great 
applause.] We owe this much to our children, we 
owe it to the memory of our Revolutionary sires, and 
Ave owe it to the friends of free inscitutiuns through¬ 
out the Avorld. The last hope of freedom in the Old 
World is now centred in the success of the American 
Republic. [Cheers.] The enemies of free institu¬ 
tions are Avatching with breathless anxiety the pro¬ 
gress of this secession movement. Tyrants have no 
hope of fastening their chains upon the necks of the 
people longer, unless they can sever this glorious 
Union and make it a mockery and a by-Avord in¬ 
stead of a shining star. [Cheers.] I did not come 
here to ask your Amtes, nor your suffrages for office. 
I am not here on an electioneering tour. I am here 
to make a plea, an appeal for the inviolability of the 
Constitution and the perpetuation of the Union. 
[Cheers.] The Presidency is but a bauble, and at 
my time of life would be rather a burden to me; 
not that I am less ambitious than other men, but I 
am too ambitious to have my death-Avarrant noAv 
sealed, to take place four years hence, and to be 
carried out and buried before I am ready to die. 
[Laughter and applause.] 

If it be necessary to make the sacrifice in order to 
beat the Abolitionists and put doAvn disunion, I Avill 
cany the banner AvhereA'’er the American people Avill 
sustain me under the Constitution of the country. 
[Cheers.] I have children that I love as much as 
ever any parent loA^ed a child ; but I pray God that 
I may neAmr suiwive them, and much less haA'e I 
any desire that they shall survWe the union of these 
States. [Cheers.] My mission, therefore, this sea¬ 
son, is not to make speeches for myself, but- to com¬ 
pare notes with you of Virginia and see whether 
there is no common ground of equality and justice 
upon which this Union may be saved and the agi¬ 
tators may be rebuked. [Applause.] 


List of Speeches, &c. Printed and Published by Murphy & Co* 

Non-Interference hy Congress with Slavery in the Territories. 

^ SPEECH of IIoN. S. A. DOUGLAS, of Illinois, in the Senate, May 15th and 16th, 1860. 

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Vr SPEECH of Hon. REVERDY JOHNSON, of Maryland, delivered before the Political Friends 

of Hon. STEPHEN A. D0UGL.4S, at a Meeting in Eaneuil Hall, Boston, June 7th, 1860. To Avhich is added the Letter 
of Hon. Keverdy Johnson to the Chairman of the Douglas Meeting in New York, May 22d, 1860..16 pages—$10 per 1000. 

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